Research confirms the ‘porn goggles’ effect
Do men really know just how much they are influenced by pornographic images? Most guys who have struggled with porn addiction will attest that the answer is no. Researchers have examined the primal appeal of porn, and its effect on our subconscious minds.
Studies show that when men view sexual images of women, and then interact with a woman in a real-world setting, they are more likely to have sexual words on their minds. They are also more likely to remember the woman’s physical appearance, and sit closer to her — for instance, at a job interview.
Susan Fiske, professor of psychology at Princeton University, also studied the effect of images of bikini-clad women on different areas of the male brain.
Although consistent with conventional wisdom, the way that men may depersonalize sexual images of women is not entirely something they control. In fact, it’s a byproduct of human evolution, experts say. The first male humans had an incentive to seek fertile women as the means of spreading their genes.
This is just the first study which was focused on the idea that men of a certain age view sex as a highly desirable goal, and if you present them with a provocative woman, then that will tend to prime goal-related responses.
They’re not fully conscious responses, and so people don’t know the extent to which they’re being influenced … It’s important to recognize the effects.
Alot of this is only common sense, as porn encourages a more sexually fired-up mind.
The problem with research such as this, is that it often (intentionally) goes down the road well worn by gynocentric (or feminist) anti-porn; that porn will make men more likely to rape. This of course is a total fallacy. All figures show porn usage drives down porn figures.
Reports such as this seem to be edging in that direction anyway.
If you’ll forgive me for bringing up the “objectification” issue again, Jason. The CNN report talks about “objectifying women” and “seeing them as objects”.
I really think these words are unscientific and unobjective – coming from the 1970s’ feminist anti-porn discourse that they do.
Here we have scientific work on the subconscious lustful mind glossed over with feminist political polemic. Unfortunate.
“Future research could look at if women depersonalize men in certain situations.”
IF? How stupid does CNN think the general public are?
All humans have a sex-focused lustful side to their psychologies and motivations which does not see human-specific attributes such as personality and so on. Does CNN really think this one-track lustful mind is confined only to male-sexed humans?!
It wreaks of a rather perverted sort of Neo-Puritanism.
Even the word “de-personalise” is unscientific and again, largely a result of feminist discourse.
Hopefully someday we will realise with porn, attraction, sex etc. we are engaging different modes of our psyches in different degrees. Hopefully we will be able to drop the emotive language.
Here we have someone jumping to the “porn turns men into rapists” conclusion as I described above;
“I already knew most men want to have sex with attractive women. Good. The news that some “hostile” men (at least 2 out of 21 or 10%, according to this limited population sample) are incapable of analytically deducing that the beautiful, bikini babe thinks they are weird (thoughts), she’s scared (feelings), and she doesn’t want to be near them let alone have sex with them (intentions) is scary.”
Correction for first post:
“All figures show porn usage drives down rape figures.”
I completely agree with you about the ‘porn turns men into rapists’ fallacy. And unfortunately, some studies do head down that road.
The Princeton University research quoted here certainly isn’t groundbreaking or revelatory, but it does touch on the ‘one-track mind’ experience encountered by guys struggling with porn.
In coming to terms with what often feels like a lonely and warped state of mind, such statements of common sense really can help. Clear perspective is such a valuable asset here; your pre-empting of the ‘potential rapist’ myth certainly helps and is appreciated.
It’s amazing the subtle affects pornography can have on us.